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Open source is all about transparency, but that doesn't always apply to all aspects of the open source ecosystem. Red Hat has settled an alleged patent infringement case with IP firm Acacia Research Corporation around U.S. Patent. That particular case was pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Civil Action.

Red Hat, Inc. announced that today a jury in federal court in Marshall, Texas, returned a verdict in favor of Red Hat, Inc. and Novell, Inc. in a case alleging patent infringement brought by IP Innovation LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation and Technology Licensing Corporation.

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, announced today that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Google, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung for use of Gemalto's innovations in the Android operating system, Dalvik virtual machine and associated development tools and products.

When patent troll Acacia sued Red Hat in 2007, it ended with a bang: Acacia’s patents were invalidated by the court, and all software developers, open-source or not, had one less legal risk to cope with. So, why is the outcome of Red Hat’s next tangle with Acacia being kept secret, and how is a Texas court helping to keep it that way?

If you're getting sued for patent infringement, you have a right to know who is really behind the lawsuit, and so does the public. So I started digging up publicly available information. What I found amazed me - so many patent plaintiffs, especially in the Eastern District of Texas, make no products, and just try to extract money out of their IP.

The recent lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas by IP Innovation LLC (and Technology Licensing Corporation) against Red Hat and Novell may be the first volley in a patent war against open source software. Acacia is a well known patent troll which has been buying patents for some time and works through multiple subsidiaries.

It turns out there were two patent cases filed by the Niro Scavone firm on Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Florida. The first was the Scott Harris/James Parker case I wrote about yesterday. The second was none other than the Global Patent Holdings JPEG patent! Adam Heffner again acted as local counsel to Ray Niro. Interestingly, all 7 defendants are Florida corporations. Is Acacia preparing for patent reform by filing in jurisdictions that make sense? Are they planning to sue more companies, in more of the 94 judicial districts?

Do you remember back in 2005 a company called Cognex took on Lemelson Partnership and won, invalidating 14 of Lemelson's patents? Well, it turns out that after that, they took on Acacia Research, and they just beat them too. Acacia is now minus one of its patents.